W  i  1 1  i  a  m     Clark::     Soldier, 
Explorer,  Statesman. 

By  REUBEN  GOLD  THWAITES,  LL.D. 

A.V    ADDRESS     DELIVERED     AT     ST.    LOUIS,     22     SEPTEMBER,     1906,     ON     THE 

OCCASION    OF   THE   UNVEILING   OF   A   TABLET   TO   THE 

MEMORY    OF   GOVERNOR    CLARK. 

(RBI'Ki.NTKlJ     FROM    VOL.    2,    No.     7,     OF    THE    MISSOURI    HISTORICAL 

SOCIETY  COLLECTIONS.) 


[Reprinted  from  VOL.  2,  No.  7,  of  the  MISSOURI  HISTORICAL  SOCIITT 
COLLECTIONS.] 


WILLIAM  CLARK:  SOLDIER,  EXPLORER, 
STATESMAN.! 

BY   RKUBKX   GOLD   THWAITE9,     LL.D. 

About  the  year  1630,  a  trifle  less  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  the  planting  of  Jamestown  colony,  one  John 
Clark,  a  recent  immigrant  from  England,  settled  upon  the 

1  On  Saturday,  22  September,  1906,  on  the  occasion  of  the  one  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  return  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition, 
there  was  unveiled  in  St.  Louis  a  bronze  tablet  to  the  memory  of 
William  Clark.  The  tablet,  the  gift  of  the  National  Bank  of  Commerce 
in  St.  Louis,  is  placed  upon  the  Broadway  front  of  the  bank  building, 
which  occupies  the  site  of  the  dwelling  house  of  Meriwether  Lewis 
Clark.  This  house  was  the  home  of  Governor  Clark  in  his  later  years . 
The  inscription  on  the  tablet  is :  — 

HERE  LIVED  AND  DIED 

TOUUiam  Clark, 

1770-1838 

OF  THE 

lewi*  ant)  Clark  fixpe&itton, 

SOLDIER,  EXPLORER,  TERRITORIAL  GOVERNOR,  SUPERIN- 
TENDENT OF  INDIAN  AFFAIRS, 

ERECTED   SEPTEMBER   23,  1906. 

THE  ONE  HUNDREDTH   ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE 
RETURN   OF    THE  EXPEDITION. 

The  designing  and  erection  of  the  tablet  was  done  under  the  direction 
of  the  Civic  League  of  St.  Louis,  which  inspired  the  gift.  The  safe 
taping  of  the  tablet  is  committed  to  the  Missouri  Historical  Society. 


2  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

James  River  in  Virginia.  We  have  little  knowledge  of  his 
antecedents  in  the  Old  World,  but  he  himself  appears 
soon  to  have  become  a  successful  tobacco  planter ;  his  de- 
scendants were  colonials  of  considerable  social  and  political 
prominence,  and  affiliated  by  marriage  with  some  of  the 
best  blood  of  Virginia. 

Americana  of  the  seventeenth  century,  especially  those 
south  of   New  England,  were  not  wide  travellers.     Roads 
were  crude,  bridges  few,  settlements  and  even  farmsteads 
wide  apart — practically  none  stirred  far  from  home,  save 
officials,   land  speculators,  fur-traders,  raisers  of  half -wild 
forest  cattle,  and  a  few  well-to-do  young  fellows  in  whose 
•veins  strongly  coursed  the  wanderlust  of  our  Teutonic  race, 
:and  who  must  have  their  outing  before  settling  down  into 
the  humdrum  of  business,  professional,  or  plantation  life. 
.A   fevv   years  after    his  settlement  John  Clark  appears  to 
ihave    made    what    was    then    a    notable  journey  into  the 
^neighboring  colony  of  Maryland,  where  he  wooed  and  mar- 
ried **  a  red-haired  Scotch  lady  "  who  had  relatives  in  the 
Virginia   county  of  King  and  Queen,  wherein  was  Clark's 
evidently    small    plantation.1     In  later  marriages,    during 
successive   generations  of  Clarks,  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish 
blood   was  freely  mingled    with  the   pure    English  strain 
that   John    Clark    had  brought  to  the  James  —  a   fusion 

The  unveiling  was  under  the  joint  auspices  of  the  Civic  League  and 
the  Historical  Society.  The  programme  was  as  follows:  — 

"  The  unveiling  of  the  tablet  by  Miss  Marie  Christy  Church,  great- 
great-granddaughter  of  General  Clark,  at  2:30  p.  m.,  September  22d, 
corner  of  Olive  street  and  Broadway. 

Commemorative  Exercises  in  Memorial  Hall  at  8  p.  m., 

HKNRT  T.  KENT,  President  of  the  Civic  League,  presiding. 

Presentation  of  Tablet     .     .     .     J.  C.  VAN  BLARCOM, 

President  National  Bank  <>f  Commerce. 
Acceptance  of  Tablet    .     .     .     Judge  WALTER  B.  DOUGLAS, 

on  behalf  of  Missouri  Historical  Society. 
Address:  WILLIAM  CLARK,  Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman. 

DR.  REUBEN  G.  THWAITES." 
The  address  of  Dr.  Thwaites  is  herewith  given.    EDITOR'S  NOTK. 

1  Correspondence  of  Col.  John  O'Fallon,  of  St.  Louis,  quoted  in 
Draper  MS.  1J37,  in  Wisconsin  Historical  Library. 


William   Clark:  Soldier,  Explorer >  Statesman.        3 

such  as  has  given  to  the  history  of  American  pioneering 
heroes  and  heroines  for  many  of  its  most  glowing  chapters. 

This  John  Clark,  great-grandfather  of  George  Rogers 
and  William,  left  one  son,  who  in  due  course  married,  but 
early  departed  this  life,  leaving  a  widow  and  two  sons, 
John  2d  and  Jonathan.  In  1725  the  latter  married  Eliza- 
beth Wilson,  the  daughter  of  an  English  Quaker  settler  of 
King  and  Queen  County.  Nine  years  later  he  in  turn 
died,  survived  by  a  well-provided  family  of  two  sons  and 
two  daughters,  of  whom  the  oldest  child  was  John  3d  (born 
October  9,  1726),  father  of  the  man  whose  services  to 
civilization  we  have  to-day  formally  recognized.1 

John  3d  married  ( 1749)  his  second  cousin,  Ann  Rogers  — 
44  an  amiable  young  lady  of  about  sixteen,"  an  old  chroni- 
cler tells  us  —  who  on  her  mother's  side  was  related  to  the 
celebrated  Byrd  family  of  Westover.  John  and  Ann  be- 
gan their  career  in  a  rude  cabin  topping  a  height  of  ground 
on  the  western  frontier  of  Albemarle  County,  quite  near 
the  plantation  of  Mrs.  Clark's  elder  brother,  John  Rogers^ 
who  had  explored  that  region  as  early  as  1712;  and  within 
a  mile  of  Monticello,  in  later  years  to  become  the  home  of 
Thomas  Jefferson.  Here  were  born  the  first  four  of  their 
ten  children  —  Jonathan  (1750),  George  Rogers  (1752), 
Ann  (1755),  and  John  4th  (1757). 

In  1757  occurred  the  death  of  Mr.  Clark's  uncle,  John  2d, 
who  had  remained  a  bachelor  and  bequeathed  to  his  name- 
sake and  favorite  nephew  his  large  farm  in  the  southwest- 
ern corner  of  Caroline  County.  Thither  the  family  of 
John  3d  at  once  removed,  and  their  six  other  children  were 
natives  of  the  new  seat — Richard  (1760),  Edmund  (1762), 
Lucy  ( 1765),  Elizabeth  (1768),  William  (August  1, 1770), 
and  Frances  (1773). 

John  and  Ann  Rogers  Clark  appeared  to  have  been  a 
thrifty  couple.  According  to  the  simple  eighteenth  century 
standards  of  the  Virginia  frontier  they  were  well-to-do, 

1  The  widow  of  Jonathan  Clark  subsequently  married  one  Richards, 
whom  »he  survived.  About  1783,  when  at  an  advanced  age,  she  died  at 
the  residence  of  her  son,  John  3*  ,  in  Caroline  County. 


4  Missouri  Historical  /Society. 

although  doubtless  many  a  Western  farmer  of  our  day 
would  consider  himself  to  have  won  but  a  fair  competence 
had  he  only  the  fortune  of  our  hero's  parents.  After  the 
manner  of  borderers,  the  children  obtained  but  the  most 
elementary  education;  reared  to  hard  work  at  home,  they 
also  had  a  full  knowledge  of  woodcraft,  for  their  fields 
were  still  girt  about  by  jungles,  and  not  far  distant 
were  dense  forests  darkly  mantling  the  eastern  slopes  of 
the  Alleghenies;  cattle,  horses,  and  hogs  were  pastured  on 
the  rich  mast  of  the  foothills,  and  after  the  annual  round- 
up driven  in  herds  to  distant  seaboard  markets ;  guarding 
the  mountain  passes  and  the  west-flowing  waters  beyond, 
were  fierce  tribes  of  Indians,  visited  only  by  wandering 
fur-traders,  hunters,  and  occasionally  a  venturesome  mis- 
sionary or  an  exploring  surveyor,  or  now  and  then  by  a 
punitive  expedition  of  the  free-and-easy  border  militia. 

When  William  was  two  years  of  age  (1772),  his  elder 
brother  George  Rogers  Clark,  then  a  young  surveyor  and 
well-equipped  borderman,  made  his  first  exploration  down 
the  Ohio  River.  Thus  William  grew  up  familiar  with  the 
ways  of  the  woods,  with  long  hunting  trips,  with  Indian 
fighters,  of  whom  there  were  several  in  his  own  family, 
and  with  thoughts  of  venturesome  deeds  far  beyond  the 
fretted  sky-line  of  the  Alleghenies  that  gave  bound  to 
Virginia  on  the  west. 

In  the  month  of  October,  1784,  five  years  after  George 
Rogers  Clark,  the  most  famous  of  all  the  sons  of  John 
Clark  3d,  had  valorously  won  for  American  arms  the 
country  beyond  the  Ohio,  and  the  year  following  the  confir- 
mation of  that  conquest  by  the  treaty  of  Paris,  his  parents 
and  most  of  his  brothers  and  sisters,  born  frontier  folk, 
took  up  their  line  of  march  from  Virginia  for  the  newer 
land  of  Kentucky.  Their  route  lay  along  the  over-mountain 
path  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Monongahela,that  had  been 
moistened  by  the  blood  of  Washington's  men  at  Fort 
Necessity  and  by  Braddock's  at  the  Turtle  Creek  crossing. 
Winter  chanced  to  set  in  early,  so  that  on  their  arrival  the 
Monongahela  was  found  to  be  choked  with  ice.  With 


William   Clark:   Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.       5 

other  Western  emigrants  the  Clarks  tarried  at  Pittsburgh 
until  the  February  thaw,  when  re-embarking  they  descended 
to  Louisville  (then  known  as  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio), 
reaching  that  far-off  Western  outpost  early  in  March. 
The  new  seat  of  the  Clarks  was  attractively  located  at 
Mulberry  Hill,  on  Beargrass  Creek  —  three  miles  south  of 
George  Rogers  Clark's  rude  fort  at  Louisville,  with  ita 
cordon  of  log  huts  for  the  settlers  —  and  here  John  Clark 
died  fourteen  years  later  (July  29,  1799);  his  aged  wife, 
Ann,  having  passed  away  several  months  previous  (Decem- 
ber, 1798.) 

Thus  in  his  fifteenth  year  William  Clark  became  a 
Kentuckian.  The  life  at  Mulberry  Hill  was  quite  similar 
to  that  on  the  Virginia  uplands,  save  that  frontier  condi- 
tions were  more  evident.  The  Clark  home  was  a  centre  of 
hospitality  and  sociability  for  the  entire  region.  Under  the 
roof-tree  at  Mulberry  Hill  were  frequently  entertained 
sturdy  pioneers  of  the  Kentucky  movement,  bringing  their 
tales  of  Indian  warfare  and  other  perils  and  hardships  of 
the  early  days ;  and  the  second  generation  of  Kentucky 
immigrants  also  found  here  a  welcome — gentlemen  and 
lawyers  of  the  new  settlements,  Revolutionary  soldiers 
seeking  homes  in  the  growing  West,  men  of  enterprise, 
culture,  and  promise,  permanent  founders  of  a  new  civiliz- 
ation. 

Among  them  all,  a  marked  favorite  was  young  ««  Billy,7' 
whose  large  and  powerful  frame  was  capped  by  a  full, 
broad  face,  profoundly  serious  in  composure,  yet  lit  by 
kindly,  sympathetic  eyes  that  were  windows  to  a  persistent, 
dauntless  soul.  His  thick  shock  of  red  hair  eloquently  be- 
spoke his  great-grandfather's  Maryland  wooing.  But  his 
own  words  were  few ;  his  reputation  being  that  of  a  youth 
who  accomplished  things,  rather  than  talked  of  them. 
Frequently  he  was  a  member  of  war  parties  against  the 
still  troublesome  aborigines.  He  had  but  entered  on  his 
seventeenth  year  when  we  find  him  enlisted  in  the  Wabash 
expedition  under  his  elder  brother,  now  General  George 
Rogers  Clark.  Three  years  Liter  (1789),  he  joined  Colonel 


6  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

John  Hardin's  unfortunate  enterprise  against  the  tribes- 
men north  of  the  Ohio,  that  met  with  at  least  one  suc- 
cess, the  spirited  defeat  of  the  enemy  on  White  River. 

In  1790  young  Clark  served  the  federal  government  by 
undertaking  a  dangerous  mission  to  the  Southern  Indians, 
when  the  Creeks  and  Cherokees  were  giving  trouble. 
The  season  following  (spring  and  summer  of  1791),  on 
reaching  his  majority,  he  was  commissioned  as  ensign  and 
acting  lieutenant,  and  served  in  the  successive  W abash 
Indian  campaigns  of  Generals  Scott  and  Wilkinson. 
"  Your  brother  William,"  writes  one  of  the  family 
friends,1  ••  is  gone  out  as  a  cadet  with  Gen.  Scott,  on  the 
expedition.  He  is  a  youth  of  solid  and  promising  parts, 
and  as  brave  as  Caesar." 

Two  years  later  (March  19,  1793),  we  find  him  commis- 
sioned as  a  first  lieutenant  of  riflemen  in  the  Fourth  sub- 
legion,  in  General  Anthony  Wayne's  Western  Army. 
After  being  engaged  as  an  engineer  in  constructing  forts 
along  the  line  of  advance,  he  was,  late  in  the  season,  dis- 
patched upon  a  perilous  and  tedious  expedition  up  the 
Wabash  as  far  as  Vincennes,  during  which  his  soldiers 
were  for  some  time  obliged  to  depend  on  their  rifles  for 
supplies,  while  for  twenty  days  their  progress  was  blocked 
by  ice. 

Returning  to  Fort  Washington  (Cincinnati)  in  the 
spring  of  1794,  Clark,  —  who,  although  holding  but  a 
lieutenant's  commission,  frequently  commanded  a  com- 
pany—  was  promptly  ordered  to  escort  to  Fort  Greenville 
seven  hundred  packhorses  laden  with  supplies  for  the 
army.  Attacked  by  the  savages  (May  13),  he  lost  six 
men  killed  and  two  wounded,  but  gallantly  repulsed  the 
enemy  and  elicited  praise  from  Wayne,2  under  whom  he 

1  Dr.  James  O'Fallon  to  Colonel  Jouathan  Clark,  May  30,  1791;  in 
Draper,  MSS.,  2L28. 

*  In  a  letter  to  his  brother,  General  Jonathan  Clark,  dated  May  31, 
1794,  Lieutenant  Clark  complains  that  the  commander-in-chief  in  his 
public  order  wrongly  attributes  to  Lieutenant  Turner,  a  passenger  in  the 
expedition,  and  under-ranking  Clark/more  laurels  than  to  the  latter,  who 
considered  himself  as  entitled  to  full  credit. 


William  Clark:  Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.       1 

later  (August  20)  won  distinction  by  leading  the  left  col- 
umn of  riflemen  in  the  Battle  of  Fallen  Timbers.  During 
this  campaign  he  also  acted  as  adjutant  and  quartermaster 
to  the  legion. 

In  1795  Wayne  sent  Clark  with  a  message  to  the  Span- 
ish authorities  at  New  Madrid,  protesting  against  the 
erection  of  a  fort  at  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs.  It  is  said  that 
they  were  much  impressed  by  the  dignity  and  soldierly 
bearing  of  the  young  lieutenant  who  was  so  soon  to  be 
planning  for  the  exploration  of  their  vast  trans-Mississippi 
possessions.  The  following  summer,  in  his  twenty-sixth 
year,  he  resigned  his  commission  and  retired  from  the 
army  (July  1,  1796),  because  of  ill  health  — apparently 
with  the  brevet  rank  of  captain,  for  thereafter  he  was  given 
that  title. 

Clark's  four  years'  service  in  the  Western  Army  had 
been  of  a  character  to  bring  fresh  honors  to  the  Clark  name, 
had  he  done  no  more.  He  had  become  familiar  with  the 
methods  of  handling  and  retaining  the  respect  of  large  bodies 
of  frontiersmen  under  military  discipline;  his  store  of 
courage  and  resource  had  been  tested  to  the  full  in  dealing 
with  savage  foes;  he  had  acquired  experience  on  diplomatic 
missions ;  he  had  been  in  touch  with  the  prominent  men  of 
his  time.  But  most  significant  and  far-reaching  of  all,  he 
was  for  several  months  previous  to  his  resignation  thrown 
into  intimate  companionship  with  Meriwether  Lewis,  four 
years  his  junior,  whom  he  had  doubtless  known  as  a  boy  in 
Virginia,  and  who  —  in  the  capacity  of  an  ensign  assigned 
to  his  company  —  was  now  his  fellow  campaigner.1 

Captain  William  Clark  became,  in  his  retirement,  a  young 
country  gentleman,  and  at  first,  after  recovering  his  health, 
placidly  occupied  himself  with  the  business  of  his  now  aged 
father's  estate.  When  the  latter  died,  Mulberry  Hill  fell 
to  William's  share.  But  with  these  rustic  duties  were  soon 
mingled  the  management  of  the  tangled  affairs  of  his  famous 

1  See  Clark's  letter  to  Nicholas  Biddle,  dated  St.  Louis  August  15, 
1811,  in  Coues,  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition  (N.  Y.,  1893),  i,  pp.  Ixxi, 
Ixzii. 


8  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

brother,  George  Rogers  Clark,  which  henceforth  occupied 
much  of  his  attention.  Vexatious  suits  were  brought 
against  the  hero  of  Vincennes,  for  supplies  furnished  to  his 
troops  during  the  Revolutionary  War;  and  to  meet  these 
William  Clark,  self-sacrificingly  loyal  to  his  brother's  inter- 
ests, parted  with  a  large  share  of  his  own  possessions,  even 
the  ancestral  seat  of  Mulberry  Hill.  As  some  measure  of 
compensation,  General  Clark  conveyed  to  William  65,000 
acres  of  land  below  the  mouth  of  Tennessee  River;  in 'later 
years,  when  this  tract  became  valuable,  the  latter  shared  it 
with  other  members  of  the  family. 

William  Clark's  affairs  were  in  this  condition  when,  in 
3ns  thirty-third  year,  a  momentous  letter  reached  him 
^July  16,  1803),  from  his  old  comrade  and  subordinate  in 
Wayne's  army,  now  Captain  Meriwether  Lewis  of  the  First 
Infantry,  and  lately  private  secretary  to  President  Jefferson. 
This  communication,  dated  Washington,  June  19,  gave 
confidential  information  of  Lewis's  projected  exploring 
expedition  through  Spanish  territory  to  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
under  Jefferson's  auspices,  and  Clark  was  invited  to  ««  par- 
ticipate with  me  in  its  fatiegues,  its  dangers  and  its 
honors."  The  young  Kentucky  Cincinnatus  was  cordially 
assured  by  his  still  younger  friend-at-arms  that  «*  there  is 
no  man  on  earth  with  whom  I  should  feel  equal  pleasure  in 
sharing  them  as  with  yourself."  l 

It  will  be  seen  that  owing  to  the  slowness  of  Western 
mails,  Lewis's  letter  was  all  but  a  month  in  reaching 
Kentucky.  Failing  to  hear  from  his  friend  as  soon  as  he 
had  expected,  and  fearing  that  this  might  mean  that  he 
was  unable  to  go,  Lewis  had  meanwhile  opened  tentative 
negotiations  with  Lieutenant  Moses  Hooke  of  his  own 
regiment,  then  in  charge  of  military  stores  at  Pittsburgh. 
When  Lewis's  letter  arrived,  Captain  Clark  was  at  his 
brother  George  Rogers' s  estate  at  Ciarksville,  Indiana,  on 
the  north  side  of  the  Ohio  river,  opposite  Louisville,  and 
the  following  day  (July  17)  he  accepted  the  offer  with 

1  See  correspondence  in  full  in  Thwaites,  Original  Journals  of  the 
Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition  (New  York,  1904-5),  Vol.  VII. 


William   Clark:   Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.       9 

enthusiasm.  "  This  is,"  he  wrote,  "  an  imense  under- 
taking fraited  with  numerous  dificulties,  but  my  friend  I 
can  assure  you  that  no  man  lives  with  whom  I  would  prefer 
to  undertake  and  share  the  Dificulties  of  such  a  trip  than 
yourself." 

The  circumstances  under  which  this  proposed  explora- 
tion towards  the  Pacific  was  undertaken  are,  in  this  centen- 
nial annniversary  period,  doubtless  familiar  to  all  of  us. 
But  for  the  sake  of  continuous  narrative  it  is  necessary, 
even  at  the  expense  of  bringing  historical  coals  to  this 
Newcastle,  briefly  to  recount  them.  Jolliet  and 
Marquette  (1673)  had  first  hoped  that  the  Mississippi 
might  be  found  emptying  into  the  Pacific ;  but  on  ascertain- 
ing that  its  flood  was  received  by  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  they 
looked  upon  the  Missouri  as  the  undoubted  highway  to 
the  Ocean  of  the  West.  There  was,  indeed,  a  widely- 
prevalent  tradition  among  aborigines  living  upon  the 
Mississippi,  that  the  Missouri  sprung  from  a  low-lying 
watershed  that  might  easily  be  portaged  to  some  stream 
emptying  into  the  Pacific.  Even  at  the  opening  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  charts  published  in  Europe  showed 
west-flowing  waters  interlocking  with  the  Missouri.  Sev- 
eral French  expeditions  were  organized  for  exploring  the 
Missouri  and  some  of  its  lower  affluents  —  La  Harpe  and 
Du  Tisne*  (1719),  De  Bourgmont  (1722),  and  Mallet 
(1739);  but  they  accomplished  little  more  than  obtaining 
a  knowledge  of  the  country  for  a  few  hundred  miles  above 
its  mouth,  with  side  ventures  upon  the  South  Fork  of  the 
Platte,  the  Arkansas,  and  the  plains  stretching  southwest- 
ward  to  the  Spanish  seat  of  Santa  Fe\ 

Upon  the  eve  of  the  downfall  of  New  France,  the  crafty 
Louis  XV,  in  order  to  prevent  England  from  obtaining 
them,  ceded  to  Spain  (November,  1762),  the  town  and 
neighborhood  of  New  Orleans  and  the  broad  possessions 
of  France  west  of  the  Mississippi,  the  so-called  Province 
of  Louisiana.  But  the  Spaniards  who  came  to  the  two 
capitals,  New  Orleans  and  St.  Louis,  were  in  the  main  only 
soldiers  and  public  officials.  French  habitants  occupied 


10  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

their  little  waterside  villages,  as  of  old ;  being  joined  in 
the  closing  decade  of  the  century  by  Kentuckians  like 
Daniel  Boone,  who,  weary  of  the  legal  and  social  restraints 
of  growing  American  settlements,  were  willing  to  accept 
Spanish  land  grants  with  their  promise  of  a  return  to 
primitive  conditions,  in  which  farming  alternated  with 
hunting.  French  trappers,  many  of  them  blood  relatives 
of  the  red  men,  and  now  released  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
fur-trade  monopoly  of  New  France,  freely  plied  their 
nomadic  calling  upon  the  lower  reaches  of  the  Missouri 
and  its  branches,  and  even  up  the  Platte  and  Arkansas  to 
the  bases  of  the  Rockies.  French  and  half-breed  fur- 
traders —  either  on  their  own  account,  or  as  agents  of  the 
warring  British  companies  of  the  Canadian  wilds,  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  and  the  North  West  —  wandered  far  and  near 
among  the  tribesmen,  visiting  them  in  their  permanent 
villages  and  accompanying  them  upon  hunting,  fishing, 
and  war  parties.  Their  long  journey  ings  by  land  and 
water  occasionally  carried  them  as  far  afield  as  the  great 
northern  bend  of  the  Missouri,  where  were  the  villages  of 
the  trade-loving  Mandans,  who  bartered  indiscriminately 
with  Gauls  from  St.  Louis  and  Britons  from  the  Assini- 
boin. 

In  California,  Spanish  missions  to  the  Indians  had  by 
the  opening  of  our  Revolutionary  War  extended  as  far 
north  as  San  Francisco  and  Monterey.  Spanish  manners, 
seeking  vainly  for  a  transcontinental  waterway  that  should 
furnish  a  short  route  between  Spain  and  India,  had  by  this 
time  become  familiar  with  the  Northwest  Coast  up  to  the 
modern  Sitka,  and  developed  a  considerable  trade  with  the 
natives,  chiefly  at  Nootka  Sound,  on  the  western  shore  of 
Vancouver's  Island;  while  adventurous  Spanish  mission- 
aries had  contemporaneously  penetrated  eastward  to  the 
Great  Basin.  Russian  trading  vessels  had  ventured  south- 
ward from  Alaska  to  Nootka  Sound.  In  1778  Captain 
Cook  touched  the  Northwest  Coast  on  his  third  voyage 
around  the  world ;  and  by  1785  traders  of  several  nations  — 
English,  American,  Russian,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese  — 


William   Clark:   /Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     11 

were  plying  these  waters  in  a  world-wide  commerce  for 
furs,  and  rapidly  extending  a  knowledge  of  our  Western 
shores  and  of  their  savage  inhabitants. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  Thomas  Jefferson  — 
philosopher,  seer,  statesman  —  always  interested  in  the 
Middle  West,  first  felt  within  him  yearnings  for  a  more 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  vast  country  lying  beyond  the 
Mississippi  River.  Thatthe  Province  of  Louisiana  belonged 
to  Spain,  gave  him  no  pause ;  he  felt  that  so  long  as  Brit- 
ish traders  from  Canada  were  exploiting  the  trans-Missis- 
sippi interior,  Americans  might  be  excused  for  opening 
through  this  wilderness  a  trade  route  to  the  Pacific,  and 
incidentally  extending  the  bounds  of  human  knowledge  in 
geography  and  the  natural  sciences. 

In  1783,  he  proposed  such  an  expedition  to  George  Rogers 
Clark,1  but  nothing  came  of  the  suggestion.  Three  years 
later,  when  American  minister  to  Paris,  he  arranged  with 
the  adventureous  John  Ledyard,  of  Connecticut,  who  had 
been  with  Captain  Cook  around  the  globe,  to  penetrate  to 
the  Missouri  from  the  west,  and  descend  that  stream  to  the 
American  settlements;  but  Ledyard's  enterprise  came  to 
grief  through  his  arrest  in  Kamschatka  by  agents  of  the 
Russian  crown,  which  looked  askance  at  American  oper- 
ations on  the  Northwest  Coast.  Captain  John  Armstrong 
in  1790  attempted  to  ascend  the  Missouri,  under  orders 
from  the  War  Department  at  Washington,  but  failed  be- 
cause of  the  hostility  of  the  Missouri  tribes.  In  1793  — 
the  year  following  Captain  Robert  Gray's  discovery  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  —  Jefferson,  acting  as  a  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  dispatched 
upon  this  same  mission  Andre  Michaux,  a  distinguished 
French  botanist  then  herborizing  in  the  United  States. 
Michaux  tarried  in  Kentucky  to  conduct  a  French  political 
intrigue  with  George  Rogers  Clark  and  other  disaffected 
borderers,  who  were  planning  a  filibustering  expedition 

1  The  original  MS.  of  this  letter  is  among  the  Draper  MSS.  (press- 
mark, 52J93),  in 'the  Wisconsin  Historical  Library. 


12  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

against  the  Spanish  of  Louisiana,  with  the  result  that  his 
project  of  exploration  was  abandoned.  1 

When  Jefferson  became  president  of  the  United  States, 
perhaps  a  score  of  American  trading  vessels  were  annually 
visiting  Nootka  Sound  and  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia; 
British  overland  traders  were,  as  we  have  seen,  operating 
among  the  Mandan  Indians  and  their  tribal  neighbors,  at 
or  below  the  great  bend  of  the  Missouri ;  French  and  half- 
breed  trappers  and  traders,  together  with  a  few  expatriated 
Kentuckians,  were  familiar  with  the  Missouri  and  its  lower 
affluents;  upon  St.  Peter's  River  (now  the  Minnesota), 
British  free-traders  were  profitably  bartering  with  the 
Sioux,  a  circumstance  causing  much  uneasiness  among 
Americans  of  the  Middle  West.  As  yet,  few  citizens  of 
the  United  States  were  engaged  in  the  exploitation  of  the 
trans-Mississippi,  which  Napoleon,  dreaming  of  another 
New  France  in  North  America,  had  now  ( October  1,  1800) 
obliged  Spain  to  retrocede  to  him,  although  he  had  not  thus 
far  taken  formal  possession  of  the  country. 

President  Jefferson  had  not  forgotten  his  early  dreams 
of  exploring  the  Far  West.  In  the  winter  of  1802-03, 
the  opportunity  was  presented  of  again  pushing  the  scheme, 
this  time  with  the  greater  influence  attendant  upon  his  ex- 
alted position.  An  "  act  for  establishing  trading  houses 
with  the  Indian  tribes  "  had  lapsed,  and  he  urged  Congress 
in  a  secret  message  to  reach  out  for  the  trade  of  the  Mis- 
souri River  Indians,  suggesting  an  exploring  party  as  the 
best  means  of  accomplishing  this  object. 

He  recognized  that  the  country  which  he  thus  proposed 
to  enter  had  recently  become  the  property  of  France, 
although  still  governed  by  Spain;  but  thought  that  the 
European  powers  would  not  object  to  an  enterprise  cloaked 
"as  a  literary  pursuit."  Congress  acceded  to  his  wish, 
and  appropriated  $2,500  to  carry  the  project  into  effect. 
This  amount  seems  amusingly  small ;  but  contemporary 

1  See  documents  connected  with  these  several  projects,  in  Thwaites, 
Original  Journals  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition,  Appendix,  Vol.  VII. 


William   Clark:  Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     13 

documents 1  abundantly  prove  that  Jefferson  intended 
that  the  exploring  party  should,  while  still  east  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  be  subsisted  by  the  War  Department, 
as  a  military  enterprise.  In  addition  thereto  he  issued 
in  their  favor  a  general  letter  of  credit,  which  while  it 
proved  of  no  avail,  further  demonstrates  the  fact  that  the 
enterprise  was  not  expected  to  contine  itself  to  the  ap- 
propriation . 

The  story  of  the  expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clark  is  so 
familiar  a  tale  in  our  day,  that  we  need  not  here  dwell  at 
length  upon  it.  Lewis,  who  in  1803  was  but  twenty-nine 
years  of  age,  had  won  an  excellent  reputation  in  the 
Western  Army,  and  as  Jefferson's  private  secretary 
shown  himself  a  man  of  affairs,  thoroughly  imbued  with 
common  sense,  and  much  of  a  diplomat.  The  President 
had  at  first  wished  that  a  scientist  might  lead^the  party ; 
but  just  then  no  such  person  was  available  who  at  the 
same  time  understood  the  Indian,  was  an  adept  in  camp 
life,  could  govern  a  company  of  frontiersmen,  and  pos- 
sessed the  physique  necessary  for  an  enterprise  of  this 
hardy  character.  Lewis  sought,  in  some  measure,  to 
overcome  his  deficiency  on  the  scientific  side  by  taking 
brief  but  evidently  strenuous  lessons  from  eminent 
scientists  of  his  day,  especially  regarding  the  use  of  the 
crude  astronomical  instruments  then  in  vogue,  and  the 
making  of  geological,  natural  history,  and  ethnological 
notes. 

Clark,  in  his  thirty-third  year,  furnished  not  only 
a  knowledge  of  aborigines  and  wild  life  generally,  quite 
the  equal  of  his  friend's,  but  for  his  day  was  a  competent 
engineer  and  facile  draughtsman,  qualifications  as  essential 
to  the  undertaking  as  the  necessarily  superficial  scientific 
training  of  Lewis;  he  also  proved  much  the  better  boat- 
man of  the  two,  and  to  him  apparently  was  in  large 
measure  assigned  the  difficult  task  of  training  the  men. 

Preparations  were  quite  complete  —  Lewis  was  ready  to 

1  Given  in  full  in  Appendix  (Vol.  VII;  to  Original  Journal*  of  the 
Lewi*  and  Clark  Expedition. 


14  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

start  from  Washington,  Clark  had  already  enlisted  a  num- 
ber of  young  Kentucky  riflemen,  boats  for  the  Ohio  River 
trip  and  supplies  had  been  ordered  and  were  assembling  at 
Pittsburgh,  Jefferson  had  issued  his  final  detailed  instruc- 
tions, and  permits  had  been  obtained  from  both  French 
and  Spanish  officials  who,  however,  had  small  notion  of 
what  the  expedition  meant  —  when  a  new  phase  was 
given  to  the  enterprise.  On  the  second  of  May,  1803, 
American  commissioners  had,  quite  without  authority  for 
so  important  a  transaction,  signed  a  treaty  with  Napoleon 
by  which  Louisiana  was  sold  to  the  United  States,  France 
having  three  years  previously  secretly  obtained  the  pro- 
vince from  Spain.  Some  inkling  of  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase had  certainly  reached  Washington  by  the  middle  of 
June,  for  Lewis  privately  mentioned  it  in  his  invitation  to 
Clark ;  but  official  confirmation  was  not  received  until  July 
14,  by  which  time  Lewis  had  nearly  reached  Pittsburgh, 
prepared  to  descend  the  Ohio  with  his  little  flotilla.  Thus 
the  expedition  was  on  its  feet  and  would  surely  have 
marched,  despite  European  ownership  of  the  trans-Missis- 
sippi. News  of  the  transfer  of  sovereignty  wrought  no 
other  change,  save  that  the  secrecy  heretofore  maintained 
was  no  longer  necessary. 

At  Louisville,  Clark  joined  Lewis  with  his  volunteers, 
and  the  company  wintered  near  the  mouth  of  River  Dubois, 
on  the  American  side,  opposite  the  entrance  of  the  Mis- 
souri. While  Lewis  appears  to  have  spent  much  time  in 
the  then  village  of  St.  Louis,  consulting  with  French  fur- 
traders  and  others  conversant  with  the  country,  Clark  was 
for  the  most  part  engaged  at  camp,  accumulating  stores 
and  suitable  craft  for  the  long  journey,  and  in  organizing 
and  disciplining  the  party  —  a  somewhat  sturdy  task,  this 
latter,  for  the  court-martial  records  of  the  expedition  reveal 
the  fact  that  the  young  Kentucky  riflemen  whom  Clark 
had  gathered,  were  slow  in  bending  their  democratic  necks 
to  the  military  yoke.  In  March,  Lewis  was  the  chief 
official  witness  of  the  transfer  of  Upper  Louisiana  —  at 
first  from  Spain  to  France,  and  then  from  France  to  the 
United  States. 


William   Clark:  Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     15 

May  14,  1804,  Clark  started  from  the  camp  on  the 
Dubois,  "  in  the  presence,"  he  tells  us  in  his  journal,  "  of 
many  of  the  neighboring  inhabitants,  and  proceeded  on 
under  a  jentle  brease  up  the  Missouri/'  picking  up  Lewis 
six  days  later  at  St.  Charles,  whose  citizens  hospitably 
entertained  the  adventurers.  < 

The  long  and  painful  journey  up  the  great  river  during 
the  summer  and  autumn  of  1804  was  followed  by  a  winter 
spent  in  log  huts  enclosed  by  a  stout  palisade,  among  the 
Mandan  Indians,  not  far  from  the  present  Bismarck,  North 
Dakota.  Making  a  fresh  start  from  Fort  Mandan,  upon 
the  seventh  of  April,  1805,  there  ensued  a  toilsome  ex- 
perience all  the  way  to  the  headspring  of  Jefferson  Fork  of 
the  Missouri,  which  was  reached  August  12.  Then  came 
the  crossing  of  the  rugged,  snow-clad  Bitterroot  Moun- 
tains, which  here  constitute  the  divide;  and  the  descent  of 
the  foaming  rapids  and  cataracts  of  the  Columbia,  until 
the  Pacific  was  reached  in  November.  By  Christmas  the 
party  were  safely  housed  within  Fort  Clatsop,  a  rude 
structure  —  like  Fort  Mandan,  log  huts  within  a  palisade 
covering  a  plot  of  ground  some  fifty  feet  square. 

Another  dreary  but  busy  winter  was  spent  in  studying  the 
natives  and  making  other  scientific  observations  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  filling  their  large  note-books  with  these  inter- 
esting data.  This  was  not  the  season,  however,  for 
meeting  any  of  the  numerous  trading  mariners  who  fre- 
quented the  Northwest  Coast;  thus  the  letter  of  credit 
given  by  Jefferson  to  the  explorers  proved  useless,  for 
lack  of  any  one  to  whom  it  might  be  presented.  For 
several  months  they  were  in  dire  straits,  being  obliged  to 
exercise  great  ingenuity  in  making  trinkets  and  in  the 
rude  practice  of  medicine  and  surgery,  with  which  to  ob- 
tain supplies  from  the  avaricious  natives. 

Leaving  Fort  Clatsop  the  twenty-third  of  March,  1806, 
the  return  of  the  expedition  was  delayed  by  heavy  snows 
on  the  mountainous  divide,  and  much  hardship  was  ex- 
perienced. The  actual  crossing  of  the  range  commenced 
June  15.  By  the  first  of  July  the  party  had  arrived  at 


16  Missouri  Historical  /Society. 

Travellers'  Rest  Creek,  where  the  over-mountain  Indian 
trails  converged,  and  here  they  divided  into  two  sec- 
tions—  Lewis's  party  going  direct  to  the  Falls  of  the 
Missouri,  and  afterwards  exploring  Maria's  River  with  a 
view  to  ascertaining  its  availability  as  a  fur-trade  route  to 
the  north ;  Clark  and  his  contingent  proceeding  to  the 
head  of  Missouri  navigation  of  the  year  before,  and  then 
crossing  over  to  the  Yellowstone  and  descending  that 
stream  to  its  junction  with  the  Missouri. 

Parting  company  on  the  third  of  July,  it  was  the  twelfth 
of  August  before  the  two  branches  of  the  expedition  re- 
united on  the  Missouri,  several  days  below  the  mouth  of 
the  Yellowstone.  Their  final  happy  arrival  at  St.  Louis, 
on  the  twenty-third  of  September,  1806,  after  an  absence 
of  two  years,  four  months,  and  nine  days,  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar,  and  equally  one  of  the  most  romantic  and 
significant  events  in  American  history.  "  We  were  met 
by  all  the  village  and  received  a  harty  welcom  from  all  its 
inhabitants,  &c,  "  is  Clark's  terse  record  of  what  must 
have  been  an  hilarious  popular  demonstration.  Would  he 
might  have  seen  this  beautiful  city  on  the  present  memorial 
day,  and  experienced  the  warmth  of  the  affection  in  which 
his  memory  is  still  held  at  the  close  of  the  hundred  years 
during  which  the  trans-Mississippi  wilderness  that  he  and 
his  brave  companions  opened  to  the  world  has  developed 
into  a  seat  of  imperial  wealth  and  power. 

I  should  like  to  linger  upon  the  curious  and  romantic 
story  of  the  journals  kept  by  Lewis  and  Clark  and  several 
of  their  forty-three  companions;  but  time  presses,  and 
as  the  tale  has  lately  been  told  at  length,1  it  is  left 
but  briefly  to  allude  to  it.  Upon  their  return,  both 
of  the  two  leaders  began  at  once,  here  in  St.  Louis,  to  write 
out  their  notes  for  publication.  But  both  were  soon  sum- 
moned to  high  office — Lewis  being  made  governor  of 
Louisiana  Territory,  and  Clark  its  superintendent  of  Indian 

1  Introduction  to  Original  Journals  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition 


William   Clark:  Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     17 

affairs  and  brigadier-general  of  its  militia.1  The  onerous 
duties  appertaining  to  these  new  positions  in  the  vast  ter- 
ritory through  which  they  had  journeyed  were  necessarily 
absorbing;  and  neither  being  possessed  of  the  literary 
habit,  further  progress  towards  publication  was  easily  de- 


Urged  thereto  by  Jefferson,  the  originator  and  promoter 
of  the  expedition,  Lewis  began  seriously  to  undertake  the 
work;  but  he  died  (probably  was  murdered),  the  night  of 
October  11,  1809,  in  a  Tennessee  wayside  tavern  at  which 
he  was  stopping,  en  route  to  Philadelphia  and  Washington, 
where  he  intended  at  last  to  settle  himself  to  the  task. 
Clark,  now  the  sole  survivor,  was  promptly  importuned 
from  Monticello  to  assume  charge  of  the  undertaking,  and 
finally  engaged  Nicholas  Biddle,  a  young  Philadelphia 
lawyer  and  financier  of  considerable  literal*}7  experience,  to 
edit  the  journals  and  prepare  from  them  a  popular  narra- 
tive. This  publication,  after  many  strange  adventures, 
finally  appeared  in  1814,  eight  year*  after  the  return  of 
the  expedition.  It  was,  in  many  ways,  an  admirable  piece 
of  work,  and  has  become  an  American  historical  and  geo- 
graphical classic.  But  it  was  not  full  enough,  especially  on 
the  scientific  side,  to  satisfy  Jefferson,  who  sought  to 
collect  the  original  note-books  for  the  use  of  some  future 
historian  of  his  great  enterprise.  Such  as  he  gathered, 
were  placed  in  the  care  of  the  American  Philosophical 
Society  at  Philadelphia;  but  it  appears  that  Clark,  un- 
known to  Jefferson,  retained  at  St.  Louis  a  good  share  of 
his  own  notes,  and  nearly  all  of  the  numerous  and  admir- 
able annotated  maps  and  plans  he  had  made  en  route.  In 
due  course  of  time  —  sixty  years  or  more  after  his  death  — 

1  Upon  the  expedition,  Lewis  held  a  captaincy  in  the  First  Infantry. 
Clark  had  been  promised  a  captaincy,  but  when  nis  commission  arrived 
it  proved  to  be  but  a  second  lieuteuaucy  of  artillery,  which  somewhat 
piqued  him;  but  he  concluded  to  proceed,  when  ass  ired  by  Lewis  that 
the  latter  did  not  recognize  any  difference  in  rank  between  th-m.  On 
their  return,  Clark  resigned  from  the  army  on  February  27,  1807,  and 
Lewis  on  March  2.  President  Jefferson  signed  Lewis's  commission  as 
governor  on  March  3,  Clark's  commission  being  signed  nine  days  later. 


18  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

these  drifted  to  New  York  City,  and  only  a  few  years  ago 
were  by  the  present  speaker  discovered  there  in  the  posses- 
sion of  his  heirs.  Recently,  and  for  the  first  time,  practically 
all  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  journals  and  the  Clark  maps 
have  been  published,  a  hundred  years  after  they  were 
written  and  drawn  in  the  field.1 

From  these  journals  written  day  by  day,  abounding 
though  theyare  in  scientific  data — concerning  the  botany, 
zoology,  meteorology,  geology,  astronomy,  ethnology,  and 
geography  of  the  Missouri  and  Columbia  valleys  —  we  ob- 
tain for  the  first  time  a  vivid  picture  of  the  great  explorers 
and  their  life.  Their  pages  are  aglow  with  human  inter 
est.  The  quiet,  even  temper  of  the  camp;  the  loving 
consideration  that  the  two  leaders  felt,  each  for  the 
other;  the  magnanimity  of  Lewis  —  officially  the  leader, 
and  chancing  to  hold  a  captain's  commission  while  Clark, 
evidently  through  some  clerical  misunderstanding,  was 
gazetted  merely  as  a  lieutenant  —  in  equally  dividing  every 
honor  with  his  friend,  and  making  no  move  save  by 
Clark's  consent;  the  poetic  temperament  of  Lewis,  who 
loved  flowers  and  animals,  and  in  his  notes  discoursed  like 
a  philosopher  who  enjoyed  the  exercise  of  writing;  the 
rugged  character  of  Clark,  who,  less  emotional  but  un- 
doubtedly feeling  deeply,  wrote  in  brief,  pointed,  busine&s- 
like  phrases,  and,  less  scholastic  of  the  two,  spelled  phon- 
etically, capitalized  chaotically,  and  occasionally  slipped  in 
his  grammar  —  all  these,  and  more,  are  evident  on  every 
page;  causing  the  reader  deeply  to  admire  the  men,  and  to 
follow  them  in  their  often  thrilling  adventures  with  the 
keenest  sympathy  and  admiration. 

A  hundred  years  ago,  St.  Louis  was  on  the  utmost  West- 
ern frontier,  and  for  many  years  after  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase was  the  principal  entrepot  for  the  rapidly-developing 
region  of  the  trans-Mississippi.  The  dreamy  little  village 
necesssarily  enjoyed  intimate  relations  with  the  aborigines, 
a  far-reaching  fur-trade,  and  extensive  transportation  in- 

1  Thwaites,  Original  Journal*  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition 
(7  vols.  and  atlas). 


William   Clark:   Soldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     19 

terests  along  the  great  interlacing  river  systems  of  the  Far 
West  —  over  boundless  grassy  plains  rolling  to  the  horizon 
like  the  billows  of  the  sea,  across  desert  wastes  gay  in 
saadow  but  parched  in  the  midday  sun,  and  through  rugged 
mountain  canons  reaching  tortuously  to  the  sun-kissed 
slopes  of  the  Pacific.  Socially,  St.  Louis  was  an  interest- 
ing medley  of  French,  Spanish,  and  Americans,  each  with 
their  distinct  ideals;  and  here  met  North  and  South.  This 
seat  of  Western  dominion,  its  buoyant  aspirations  tempered 
by  an  old-fashioned  conservatism,  appealed  strongly 
to  these  soberly-trained  Virginians  who  had  become  im- 
bued with  a  passion  for  pioneering.  Thus  Lewis  and  Clark, 
in  settling  down  in  Old  St.  Louis,  found  its  life  congenial, 
and  at  once  became  typical  citizens,  whom  this  modern 
cosmopolitan  community  does  well  to  venerate. 

Soon  after  Lewis's  death,  Gen.  Benjamin  Howard  suc- 
ceeded him  (April  17,  1810),  as  governor  of  Louisiana 
Territory  —  Brigadier-General  Clark  becoming  inspector- 
general  of  the  Territorial  militia  and  still  retaining  the  super- 
intendency  of  the  Indians  of  the  Territory,  as  well  as  the 
agency  of  the  federal  Indian  Department.  Upon  the  twelfth 
of  December,  1812,  the  name  of  the  Territory,  which  now 
contained  a  population  of  over  20,000,  exclusive  of  Indians, 
was  changed  to  Missouri,  and  Howard  retired,  being  made 
a  brigadier-general  in  the  federal  army.  After  a  ifew 
months  of  interregnum,  Clark  was  appointed  by  President 
Madison  as  governor  of  the  new  Territory  (July  1,  1813), 
administering  the  office  with  great  ability  until  Missouri 
entered  the  Union  as  a  State  (August  10,  1821).  A  can- 
didate for  popular  election  as  governor  of  the  new  common- 
wealth, he  was  defeated  by  his  old  friend  Colonel  Alexander 
McNair,1  then  register  of  the  United  States  Land  Office  at 
St.  Louis;  both  men  were  widely  known  and  had  many 
admirers,  but  McNair  was  apparently  the  better  politician 
of  the  twov  moreover  he  had  married  into  a  prominent  French 
family  of  the  place.  In  May  following,  President  Monroe 
appointed  Clark  as  federal  superintendent  of  Indian  affairs, 

1  The  vote  itood:  McNair,  6,676;  Clark,  2,556. 


20  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

an  office  newly  created  by  Congress,  and  this  post  he  filled 
until  his  death  in  1838;  although  for  a  short  time  (1824- 
25),  he  also  held  the  position  of  surveyor-general  of  Illi- 
nois, Missouri,  and  Arkansas. 

Ten  months  after  General  Clark  had  founded  a  home  in 
St.  Louis,  he  married  (January  5,  1808),  Miss  Julia  Han- 
cock, daughter  of  Colonel  George  Hancock  of  Fincastle, 
Virginia,  a  charming  young  woman  then  only  in  her  seven- 
teenth year,  of  whom  Clark  had  for  some  time  been  an 
ardent  admirer,  and  for  whom  upon  the  great  expedition 
he  named  one  of  the  principal  affluents  of  the  Missouri 
•'Judith's  River"  (now  the  Big  Horn).  She  died  in 
1820  (June  27),  leaving  him  five  children.1  Seventeen 
months  later  (Nov.  28,  1821),  he  married  her  first  cousin 
(three  years  her  senior),  Mrs.  Harriet  Kennedy  Radford, 
who  died  in  1831  (Dec.  25),  having  borne  him  two 
children.2 

Amidst  his  numerous  and  often  exacting  official  duties, 
Clark  appears  to  have  found  time  and  opportunity  to  enter 
freely  into  the  commercial  side  of  life  in  Old  St.  Louis. 
In  the  newspaper  press  of  the  time  we  find  frequent  refer- 
ences to  his  somewhat  extended  dealings  in  city  real  estate. 
The  brick  mansion  that  he  built  (1818-19)  on  the  corner 
of  Main  and  Vine  streets,  not  far  from  the  site  of  the  build- 
ing in  which  he  died  and  which  we  have  this  day  marked 
by  a  beautiful  memorial  tablet,  was  one  of  the  most  im- 
posing of  early  St.  Louis  residences.  Within  his  adjoining 
block  of  brick  houses  on  Main  street,  he  constructed  a 
large  hall  which  for  many  years  was  used  as  a  council  room 
for  Indian  treaty  conventions  and  talks ;  while  upon  its 
walls  and  in  cases  were  displayed  a  very  considerable  col- 

1  Meriwether  Lewis,  born  St.  Louis,  January  10, 1809,  died  at  Frank- 
fort, Ky.,  Oct.  28,  1881;  William  Preston,  born  St  Louis,  Oct.  5,  1811, 
died  there  May  16,  1840;  Mary  Margaret,  born  St.  Louis,  Jan.  1,  1814, 
died  near  Middleton,  Ky.,  Oct.  15,  1821;  George  Rogers  Hancock,  born 
St.  Louis,  May  6,  1816,  died  at  Minoma,  St.  Louis  County,  Oct.  2,  1858; 
John  Julius,  born  St.  Louis,  July  6,  1818,  died  there  Sept.  5,  1831. 

1  Jefferson  Kearney,  born  St.  Louis,  February  29,  1824,  died  Jan- 
uary 9, 1900,  in  New  York  City;  Edmund,  born  St.  Louis,  Sept.  9,  1826, 
died  there  Aug.  12,  1827. 


William   Clark:   Soldier,  Explorer,  /Statesman.     21 

lection  of  Indian  curiosities  that  was  open  to  the  public, 
being  frequently  alluded  to  in  terms  of  admiration  in  the 
journals  of  travellers  who  visited  this  then  frontier  com- 
munity. "  Here  were  Indian  dresses  decorated  with 
feathers;  weapons,  such  as  bows  and  arrows,  battle  clubs, 
and  stone  axes;  birch-bark  canoes,  suspended  from  the 
ceiling;  skins  of  animals;  the  bones  of  a  mastodon;  and 
other  interesting  specimen  and  relics."1  This  hall  was 
also  the  scene  of  numerous  banquets,  patriotic  celebrations, 
and  other  popular  gatherings,  thus  largely  entering  into 
the  daily  life  of  St.  Louis  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago, 
and  of  itself  well  meriting  to-day's  memorial  exercises. 

The  general  was  also  prominent  in  the  Indian  fur-trade 
of  the  great  region  whose  gates  Lewis  and  himself  had 
opened  to  commerce.  In  1809,  he  in  company  with  Manuel 
Lisa,  Silvestre  Labaddie,  Pierre  Chouteau  Sr.,  Auguste 
Chouteau  Jr.,  Reuben  Lewis,  and  Benjamin  Wilkinson, 
all  of  St.  Louis,  and  other  stockholders  from  neighboring 
States,  organized  the  American  Fur  Company,  capitalized 
at  $27,000,  to  trade  with  the  aborigines  of  the  upper  Mis- 
souri and  the  mountains  beyond.  Three  years  later,  the 
capital  stock  was  increased  to  $50,000,  and  the  name 
changed  to  the  Missouri  Fur  Company,  an  organization 
long  dominating  the  trade  of  the  Far  West,  aDd  popularly 
accredited  with  considerable  financial  success. 

It  is  an  interesting  revelation  of  one  phase  of  his  private 
character  to  find  him,  in  documents  of  the  period,  assisting 
in  the  establishment  of  Christ  Church  in  St.  Louis,  and 
thus  becoming  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  communion  west  of  the  Mississippi.  In  Christ 
Church  Cathedral,  an  outgrowth  of  that  early  parish,  there 
can  to-day  be  seen  a  beautiful  memorial  window  placed 

From  note  to  the  writer  by  Miss  Eleanor  Glasgow  Voorhis,  of  New 
York  City,  great-grandaughter  of  General  Clark,  published  in  Thwaites, 
Early  Western  Travels,  xi,  p.  263,  Miss  Voorhis  relates  that  after 
Clark's  death,  the  keeper  of  the  museum,  without  authority  or  knowledge 
of  the  family,  took  the  collection  to  England,  and  disposed  of  the  speci- 
mens to  his  own  profit. 


22  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

there  by  his  daughter-in-law,  Eleanor  Glasgow  Clark?  in 
memory  of  bis  son  and  her  husband,  George  Rogers  Han- 
cock Clark.1 

General  Clark  was  great  as  an  explorer,  and  doubtless  it 
is  in  that  capacity  that  posterity  will  chiefly  view  him. 
But  in  truth  his  services  to  his  country  as  superintendent 
of  Indian  affairs  in  Louisiana  and  Missouri  territories,  and 
his  career  as  governor,  were  quite  as  important,  although 
less  heralded.  During  the  three  decades  of  his  superin- 
tendency,  when  American  explorers  and  traders  were  first 
occupying  the  trans-Mississippi  region,  it  was  of  the  ut- 
most importance  to  these  civilizing  agencies  that  the  abor- 
igines be  kept  at  peace  with  our  army  of  occupation. 
Upon  the  transcontinental  expedition  of  1804-06,  Clark 
was  the  dominant  figure  in  all  negotiations  with  the 
Indians.  Unlike  Lewis,  who  while  eloquent  in  his  tribal 
talks,  did  not  always  please  his  native  hearers,2  Clark's 
manner  was  mild,  affable,  conciliatory,  sympathetic,  in 
which  attitude  he  was  much  assisted  by  a  benevolent, 
kindly  countenance,  and  large  expressive  eyes,  which  in* 
evitably  inspired  confidence.  His  skillful  diplomacy  upon 
the  tour,  to  which  every  page  of  the  Original  Journals 
bears  unconscious  but  eloquent  witness,  was  continued  in 
his  capacity  as  superintendent.  The  result  was,  that  be- 
tween the  mouths  of  the  Missouri  and  the  Columbia,  he  was 
venerated  by  scores  of  tribes,  among  whom  the  word  of 
"  Red  Head,'*  as  he  was  affectionately  styled,  became  law. 

1  On  the  left  side  of  the  chancel,  near  the  organ. 

2  In  his  journal,  given  in  L.  R.  Masson,  Bourgeois  de  la  Compagnie  du 
Nord-Ouest  (Quebec,  1889),  i,  p.   336,  the  explorer  Charles   Mackenzie, 
who  met  Lewis  and  Clark  at  Fort  Mandan  in  the  winter  of  1804-05,  says: 
»'  Mr.  La  Rocque  and  I  *   *  *  became  intimate  with  the  gentlemen  of  the 
American  expedition,  who  on  all  occasions  seemed  happy  to  see  us,  and 
always  treated  us  with  civility  and  kindness.     It  is  true,  Captain  Lewis 
could  not  make   himself  agreeable  to  us.     He  could  speak  fluently  and 
learnedly  on  all  subjects,   but  his  inveterate    disposition   against  the 
British  stained,  at  least  in  our  eyes,  all  his  eloquence.     Captain  Clarke 
was  equally  well-informed,   but  his  conversation  was  always  pleasant, 
for  he  seemed  to  dislike  giving  offense  unnecessarily." 


William    Clark:   tioldier,  Explorer,  Statesman.     23 

Clark's  reputation  for  stern  integrity,  for  absolute  purity 
of  private  character,  for  sympathy  with  the  unfortunate, 
for  advocacy  of  the  rights  of  men,  whether  red  or  white, 
mingled  with  his  capacity  for  swiftly  administering  needed 
retribution,  was  of  the  utmost  importance  in  a  vast  border 
region  wherein  the  original  inhabitants  were  being  slowly 
but  surely,  and  not  always  gently,  ousted  by  the  vanguard 
of  civilization,  and  where  the  worst  elements  among  both 
whites  and  reds  might  at  any  moment  precipitate  wide- 
spread conflict.  Through  these  troubled  waters,  General 
and  Governor  Clark  safely  steered  the  course  of  the  Great 
West.  Whether  in  times  of  peace  or  of  war  —  his 
splendid  services  on  the  frontier  in  the  War  of  1812-15 
were  alone  enough  to  win  him  the  nation's  gratitude  —  he 
was  for  the  thirty-one  years  of  his  official  career  in  more 
senses  than  one  the  dominant  figure  in  your  midst.  When, 
upon  the  site  dedicated  by  this  afternoon's  ceremonies,  he 
passed  from  this  life  on  the  first  of  September,  1838,  aged 
sixty-eight  years  and  one  month,  his  demise  was  sincerelv 
mourned  by  both  races,  throughout  the  northern  half  of 
the  trans-Missis-sippi. 

You  do  well  to  honor  him  to-day.  Republics  are  charged 
with  being  ungrateful.  This  is  but  a  superficial  view.  A 
monarchy  has  well-organized  machinery  for  the  official 
recognition  of  its  worthy  servants.  In  a  democratic  gov- 
ernment, we  perforce  leave  to  popular  action  the  placing 
of  laurels  on  our  heroes'  brows,  and  such  action  is  neces- 
sarily spasmodic  and  uncertain.  The  republic  is  surely  as 
grateful  as  the  monarchy  for  noble  deeds  in  the  public 
cause,  although  less  frequently  giving  formal  expression  to 
its  sentiment.  We  need  to  cultivate  this  practice  among 
us,  as  a  people.  Not  that  heroes  are  actually  made  by  the 
affixing  of  medals,  or  by  the  expectation  of  popular 
applause ;  but  the  generous  recognition  of  high  public  ser- 
vice, past  or  present,  awakens  within  us  all  that  civic  and 
national  pride  in  our  past,  that  historic  self-consciousness 
as  a  people,  that  is  the  sure  foundation  of  patriotism. 


24  Missouri  Historical  Society. 

It  is  not  given  to  many  cities  of  the  West,  to  harbor 
such  precious  historic  traditions  as  those  clustering  around 
Old  St.  Louis.  But  amidst  all  your  rich  heritage  of  glow- 
ing memory,  no  single  event  was  quite  so  pregnant  with 
far-reaching  consequences  as  the  expedition  of  Lewis  and 
Clark,  first  and  in  many  respects  greatest  of  all  explora- 
tions undertaken  by  our  federal  government.  You  to-day 
celebrate  its  safe  and  successful  return  to  its  point  of 
departure,  and  incidentally  honor  yourselves  in  especially 
recognizing  St.  Louis's  debt  of  gratitude  to  one  of  her 
noblest  citizen*,  William  Clark  —  soldier,  explorer,  states- 
man, benefactor  of  his  race. 


COD 


